In a year in which mass shootings in the USA have reached record numbers, and are still rising with five months of the year left to run ....
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| The Schmidt's - As They Will Be Remembered |
.... its often hard to pick out any except the most outrageous events, the multiple deaths such as school shootings.
But, if ever there was one such mass killing, that sums up the personal family tragedies that virtually unfettered access to guns brings, its the sad tale from last week. A family of four from Cedar Falls, Iowa, the Schmidt's, were on their holidays, and camping at Camp Shalom, Inc an organised Christian camp site in the Maquoketa Caves State Park in Iowa.
When on the 22nd of July, 2022, Anthony Sherwin, a 23 year old from La
Vista, Nebraska murdered three members of the family by shooting them in
their tent. He was not known to have had any contact with the family,
and killed himself after the shooting with his weapon, so any motive,
other than simple madness, may actually never be known.
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| Anthony Sherwin - Suspect. |
He allegedly killed Tyler Schmidt, 42; Sarah Schmidt, 42; and Lula Schmidt, 6 ... their 9 year old son Arlo survived. Tyler Schmidt was a software engineer and Sarah Schmid had been a Cedar Falls Public Library employee, and well known in the town ... tributes poured in, led by her sister, and family, and a GoFund page set up to help the surviving child.
The accused murderer Sherwin, apparently “lived in an apartment complex with his parents” and had no criminal history .. he was apparently at the camp site with his parents. In a sad irony, poor Arlo ran to the Sherwin's tent to report the murder of his family as it was just 75 yards away. Sherwin's mother Cecilia Sherwin said she didn't believe that he was capable of such an act, and his parents even suggested that he might have heard the shots or sensed trouble, and grabbed a firearm in the family’s vehicle for self-protection ... a claim totally dismissed by the police.
His only known reported contact with the police, was a false report that someone was misusing his dental plan ... a claim later withdrawn. Sadly, as is always the case, his parents are victims of this tragedy as well, as they also have to come to terms with both the loss of a child, and also the grim facts surrounding his death.
Guns are only used to threaten, kill or harm people, they really don't have other uses .... its a fact that easy access to them for civilians can lead to tragedies ... a fact that all too many US families are having to live with this year.
Just madness this belief in guns as the answer, and not the problem. But that belief is never going to end, it's ingrained as a part of US society now.
ReplyDeleteI just think its such a sad story. So many lives destroyed or ruined, just because a young man with a gun decided to do something that he could never have done with out the gun. Thanks for the comment.
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